To investigate the anti-hepatoma mechanism of α-pinene, HepG2 cell was treated with α-pinene and the change of cell cycle was examined by flow cytometry. The expression of miR-221, which was related the regulation of G₂/M phase, was detected by quantitative Real-time PCR. Meanwhile, TargetScan and other online bioinformatics methods were used to analyze and predict the target genes of miR-221, then the expression level of related target genes were detected by quantitative Real-time PCR. The results showed that α-pinene inhibited the proliferation of HepG2 cells in dose-dependent manner. It was also proved that HepG2 cells were arrested at G₂/M phase by α-pinene (P<0.05). The expression of miR-221 was down-regulated in α-pinene treated HepG2 cell. The bioinformatics analysis showed that CDKN1B/P27 and CDKN1C/P57 may be the protential targets of miR-221 and both of them were significantly up-regulated（P<0.001,P<0.05）by α-pinene treatment. According to these results, it was believed that α-pinene may inhibit the proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma cells through arrest the cell at G₂/M phase, which may be associated with the down-regulate of the miR-221 expression and up-regulate of the CDKN1B/P27 and CDKN1C/P57 expression.
Keywords: G₂/M phase; miR-221; α-pinene.
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